◆ Analysis: Is Bolton’s book Trump’s smoking gun?

IWASHINGTON n another time, in another Washington, this might be the moment that changed the trajectory of the presidency. A former national security adviser confirms that the president, despite his denials, conditioned security aid to a war-torn ally on its cooperation against his domestic rivals, the issue at the heart of his ongoing impeachment trial.

At first glance, at least, John Bolton’s account of President Donald Trump’s private remarks sounds like an echo of the so-called smoking gun tape that proved that President Richard Nixon really had orchestrated the Watergate cover-up and ultimately forced him from o∞ce. But this is Trump’s era and Trump’s Washington, and the old rules do not always apply.

The reality show star who was elected president even after he was captured on an Access Hollywood tape boasting about sexual assault has gone on to survive one revelation after another in the three years since, proving more durable than any national politician in modern American history. So will this be the turning point or just one more disclosure that validates his critics without changing other minds? Will it be another smoking gun or another Access Hollywood?

The news of Bolton’s account in an unpublished book, first reported by the New York Times, could hardly come at a worse time for Trump, just as his lawyers have opened his defense on the Senate floor and days before the senators will vote on whether to call witnesses like Bolton. Until now, Trump seemed assured not only of acquittal but appeared likely to fend o≠ the testimony of any more witnesses.

But the pressure on the handful of Republican senators who had been wavering on calling witnesses will now increase exponentially and the president’s defense has suddenly been thrown into disarray.

What’s perhaps even more shocking is that the White House knew what Bolton had to say at least as far back as Dec. 30, when he sent his manuscript to the National Security Council for standard prepublication review to ensure that no classified information would be released, yet continued to promote a completely opposite narrative.

In his book, Bolton writes that Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in congressionally approved security assistance to Ukraine until its government helped with investigations into Democrats including former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden — exactly what Trump is on trial for.

Trump and his defenders quickly sought to undercut Bolton by dismissing him as a disgruntled former employee seeking to take revenge and sell books. Bolton abruptly left the White House in September after months of tension with the president over his policies toward North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Ukraine; the president insisted he fired him while Bolton insisted he resigned.

Starting early Monday morning, hours after the Times’ report on Bolton’s book, Trump fired o≠ more than a half-dozen messages on Twitter rebutting his former adviser’s account and attacking him as untrustworthy.

“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” the president wrote. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”

He also reposted messages from supporters assailing Bolton and comparing him to others the president viewed as disloyal like James Comey, the FBI director he fired in 2017. “Just like James Comey, John Bolton is trying to get rich o≠ a lie- and leak-fueled campaign to overturn the 2016 election results,” read one of the messages the president retweeted.

But Bolton’s account on its face seems to eviscerate a central part of the defense that the White House began presenting on the Senate floor Saturday.